


full the woods of leaf and flower

by MashpotatoeQueen5



Series: let's dance in the kitchen and call it something like love [6]
Category: Batgirl (Comics), Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types, Batman and Robin (Comics), Batman and the Signal (Comics)
Genre: (past) - Freeform, AS IN TODDLERS, Adopted Children, Adopted Sibling Relationship, Adopting Issues, Age Regression/De-Aging, Alfred Pennyworth is the Best, And by Baby I mean Actual Infant, And by Baby I mean SMOL, And mostly succeeds, Babies, Baby Damian Wayne, Baby Jason Todd, Baby Tim Drake, Bruce Wayne Feels, Bruce Wayne Has Feelings, Bruce Wayne Has Issues, Bruce Wayne Has a Heart, Bruce Wayne Tries to Be a Good Parent, Bruce Wayne is Soft, Bruce Wayne is a Good Parent, Bruce is so sad he couldn't protect his kids, Bruises, But He loves them so much, But Only a Little Bit - Freeform, C'mon, Childhood Memories, Children, Damian Wayne Feels, Dancing, Dancing and Singing, Dick Grayson is just along for the ride, Does Bruce Know What He's Doing?, Does Bruce Wayne Love His Kids?, Families of Choice, Family, Family Feels, Family Fluff, Fluff, Fluff and Hurt/Comfort, Football | Soccer, Gen, Good Grandparent Alfred Pennyworth, Gues who's jumping on that bandwagon!, Harm to Children, Hell No!, Hell yes!, How did it happen you ask?, I say it counts, Just bask in the cuteness and let it be, Kid Fic, Lullabies, Mentions of Harm to Children, Mostly focused on Bruce and Dami, Mostly just FLUFFINESS, Protective Bruce Wayne, Reading, Reading Aloud, Scars, Singing, Slow Dancing, Soft Bruce Wayne, Soft Parent Bruce Wayne, Sort Of, This man loves his kids SO MUCH, Tiny tiny humans, Toddlers, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, Unconventional Families, Yeaaaaaaah, You don't get to know!, being young, but everyone gets their time to shine, he has SO MANY KIDS, this boi, you know you wanna
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-11
Updated: 2020-04-11
Packaged: 2021-03-02 04:48:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,665
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23599369
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MashpotatoeQueen5/pseuds/MashpotatoeQueen5
Summary: The Batfamily gets deaged, and Bruce reminisces about his kids while he tries to coax baby Damian Wayne back to sleep.
Relationships: Bruce Wayne & Damian Wayne, Bruce Wayne & Everyone, Bruce Wayne & his family, Cassandra Cain & Tim Drake & Dick Grayson & Duke Thomas & Jason Todd & Bruce Wayne & Damian Wayne, Stephanie Brown & Cassandra Cain & Tim Drake & Dick Grayson & Jason Todd & Damian Wayne
Series: let's dance in the kitchen and call it something like love [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1665436
Comments: 24
Kudos: 508





	full the woods of leaf and flower

**Author's Note:**

> Title and lyrics come from the Song "Ar_Lan_y_Môr." 
> 
> It's a Welsh lullaby my mum used to sing for me, and is very near and dear to my heart. 
> 
> I hope you all enjoy! <3

Damian is crying again.

Bruce blinks up at his ceiling, trying to make his tired brain keep up after the initial jolt of awakeness upon the sound of distress. It’s the third time so far this night, and Bruce has only been home from patrol for a few hours. 

(When he had gotten back, Dick had shoved Damian into his arms with a tired glare and gentle fingers. He’s thirteen and lanky and so incredibly young, and Bruce wonders when they all got so old, when fourteen years could make such a difference. At least the older kids have kept some approximation of their memories, as vague as they are. Enough to recognize him, at least, and each other. It’s more than they usually get.)

The wailing reaches a higher pitch, fussing and shrieking and wordless.

He gets out of bed.

The crib isn’t actually a crib. It’s Titus’ old bathtub, cleaned out and padded with blankets. Damian hardly takes up any space, as he wiggles and fusses and whines, his sleeping sack bunching at his feet as he kicks.

He’s so _small._

Bruce reaches out with a finger, traces it over the baby’s forehead and then down his nose, repeating the motion when the squirming stops and Damian instead freezes, staring up at him with wide green eyes.

"Hello," Bruce says, and he wonders if Damian understands. He wonders if it matters.

His kid doesn't respond. He just looks up at Bruce with those big knowing eyes. And it makes him softer, maybe, deep inside his chest.

"Hello, there."

Again, again. And Bruce is calling across the time stream, calling across the years. He does not know how to deal with this Damian who is not already partially grown, headstrong and brave and full of talent and _life_ and so much more.

He's growing up, this boy of his. He's up to Bruce's shoulder now, heading right towards his chin, and Bruce wonders if Damian will be the first of his children to outgrow him.

...If Jason had had a fuller childhood, one where food wasn't scarce and a roof over his head was a guarente not a chance encounter, he probably would have surpassed Bruce years ago.

But Bruce has never been involved with his children when they were young like this, when they were small and tiny and untouched by the world and all its cruelty, for as long as life would let them have their innocence. He could not have helped them. 

And yet-

And yet here he is. Here he is, standing in his room, looking down at his son small and fragile in a makeshift crib. Here he is, in a house full of children, almost all of them so much younger than he's ever known them. 

Alfred’s been taking pictures like a madman. He claims they’re for Barbara, but Bruce suspects they’ll have a few new frames around the house and in his office in the upcoming weeks.

Stephanie is missing her two front teeth, blond hair a ragged mop on top of her head. He wonders if she cut it herself. (He hates how she’s already gathering scars.) Tim had clambered onto Bruce’s lap and rambled for nearly an hour about how confusing _Meet the Robinson’s_ was because _time travel doesn't work like that, makes no sense,_ and he could have lifted the boy in one hand, easily. 

Jason just wants to play soccer, and Bruce had gone out with a baby carrier on his back and a crowd of children at his feet, trying not to trample any of the pint sized powerhouses as they fumbled with the ball. Harper in particular had been cackling, pulling Cullen along behind her as she quite literally threw herself on top of the ball and called for penalties when people consequently kicked her. 

Cullen, for his part, had maintained a look of exasperation far more suited to his older face, and had played for some half an hour before sitting on the sidelines with Alfred, drinking lemonade and talking about sharks.

Both he and Harper are far too thin, and there’s a bruise on the girl’s cheek that _shouldn’t be there,_ and Bruce tries to not pay attention to it because otherwise he’s just going to get pissed off.

Duke had curled up in his lap and had forced Bruce to read no less than seven books to him, enraptured by the colourful pages. Alfred had been the one to tug them out of the attic, fingers gentle and face nostalgic, and as Bruce had read he had some sort of vague recollection of his own father, reading the same rhyming phrases on cold winter nights, voices and laughter and his mother rolling her eyes.

It seems like so long ago, now. 

Dick had been a lifesaver, chasing after kids he had only faint memories of, doing tricks for them and letting Cass sit on his shoulders, the little girl directing him with gentle tugs on his hair, silent but smiling. She too, has scars, and Bruce _aches_ because he couldn’t save them, he _couldn’t-_

He couldn’t save them. He never knew them, then. All these little kids who will one day grow up to be heroes in their own right. All these _children,_ with their gap tooth smiles and tiny hands, small fragile fingers reaching up to hold onto his own, entire palms wrapping around his pinky.

He wishes that he would have known them.

He wishes he could have helped them, kept them away from their bruises and their scars, from those fears and anxieties he knew they had been immersed in even when these tiny forms had been their natural state.

He wishes.

But he also misses his kids. The ones he’s come to know. He misses Tim’s sharp intellect and Duke’s warm laughter, the way Dick knows how to talk him down from stupid ideas and Stephanie grins up at him, mischivious and bright. He misses Harper and her sarcasm and tenacious spirit, Jason and his delight in waxing poetry about some novel he read over the weekend, Cullen and his quiet company in the early mornings, when the house is not quite awake and the dawn is still. He misses Cass and her strength, the way she dances when she’s happy, the way her laughter is soundless and graceless and lights up the room.

He misses Damian, fierce and young and brilliant, artbook in hand on warm summer evenings, clever fingers bringing to life a world on a page. 

He wishes he had had them then, all his wonderful children who never deserved such hardships, but he’s so, so glad he has them _now._

Bright green eyes. Talia’s eyes. He could have had this, in another life. This small warm body looking up at him in perfect trust, soft and fragile, little button nose. He wants to rage at his boy’s mother, but he can’t bring himself to anger. Not when he has this. Not when he gets to see it, if only for a few days, gets to see Damian as the baby he might have once been.

Damian, who coos, flails, and then scrunches up his little face. Bruce tries to hush him, half hoping the infant will just drop back off to sleep, but instead he starts to make fussing noises once more.

There’s nothing else for it: Bruce picks him up.

He cradles his kid’s head, gently, gently. The baby is so _small,_ soft downy hair and miniscule fingers, and Bruce loves him, he loves him so much, and-

And Damian’s fussing. 

Bruce rocks him, as carefully as he can. Unbidden, some age old song comes echoing through his head. He remembers his mother singing it, after the lights went out, a wavering tune from somewhere far away.

Damian blinks up at him, and Bruce clears his throat, shifts the baby to rest against his shoulder. He can’t remember all the words, but…

But he starts to sing.

It’s little more than a nursery rhyme. A song about the seaside, where red roses and white lilies are blooming, and how love is fairer still. It’s a song about _love_. About simple gentle things, where nothing hurts and nothing aches. It’s the kind of life he'd want for his kids, if things were different. If the _world_ was different. 

And he sings.

He sings about the golden flowers and the sweet rosemary, blue pebbles lying across the sea floor. He falters and hums and pauses for the words slipping across his memory, rubbing Damian’s back round and round, soft and slow and sure. Rotating in circles with gentle steps, if only because it seems like the thing to do.

 _It’s almost a dance_ , he thinks. And it makes him laugh quietly, a near soundless puff against downy black hair. Damian’s small form squirms and settles, tiny fists clenching into his shirt.

Bruce sings. A new dawn will be rising soon, in an hour, or maybe two. Damian falls asleep on his shoulder, nodding off in spurts and starts. His house is full of slumbering children, and a hundred gentle things.

Nothing hurts. Nothing aches. The world is quiet, and it is still.

* * *

_**Beside the sea red roses growing** _

_**Beside the sea white lilies showing** _

_**Beside the sea their beauty telling** _

_**My true love sleeps within her dwelling**_

_**Beside the sea the stones lie scattered** _

_**Where tender words in love were uttered** _

_**While all around there grew the lily** _

_**And sweetest branches of Rosemary**_

_**Beside the sea blue pebbles lying** _

_**Beside the sea gold flowers glowing** _

_**Beside the sea are all things fairest** _

_**Beside the sea is found my dearest**_

_**Full the sea of sand and billows** _

_**Full the egg of whites and yellows** _

_**Full the woods of leaf and flower** _

_**Full my heart of love for ever.**_

_**Fair the sun at new day’s dawning** _

_**Fair the rainbow’s colours shining** _

_**Fair the summer, fair as heaven** _

_**Fairer yet the face of Elin**_

* * *

**Author's Note:**

> You can give the song in its original Welsh a listen here:  
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5x8uFGwmbqM
> 
> Translation for the lyrics comes from here:  
> https://lyricstranslate.com/en/ar-lan-y-mor-beside-sea.html
> 
> If anyone has any prompts for characters they'd like to see dancing together, let me know! :3


End file.
